Spotted seahorse

Background

The spotted seahorse can reach a length of 17–30 cm. Its body is large, elongated, and lacks spines, with all bumps rounded. The head is relatively large, the snout short and thick, and the coronet small and rising toward the rear, sometimes with filaments. Body coloration is often dark with a grainy texture, but can also be yellow, cream, or reddish with blotches and numerous small dark spots.

Some adults have a black line across the dorsal fin. The tail is used as a grasping appendage, bending ventrally due to body plates and hypoxia muscles. Hippocampus kuda ranges from the Persian Gulf to Southeast Asia, Australia, Japan, and several Pacific islands including Hawaii, and also along the eastern coast of Africa from Tanzania to South Africa. The majority of the population occurs from the Chinese coast down to Australia.

The species is completely monogamous. Courtship involves the male changing color patterns, dancing around the female, and producing a clicking sound with the coronet. After tails intertwine, the female places up to one thousand eggs into the male's ventral brood pouch via an ovipositor. Development lasts twenty to twenty-eight days, with birth depending on monsoon patterns, lunar cycles, and water temperature.

Males typically give birth during a full moon, and newborns average seven millimeters in length. H. kuda are omnivores that feed on minuscule living prey such as larval fishes and zooplankton via suction feeding. They are not strong swimmers. Predators include crabs, rays, tuna, sea turtles, and humans.